The story of the Lufthansa heist was the focus of the 1991 film “Goodfellas,” staring Ray Liotta as Gangster Henry Hill.
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Biggest Theft Of Cash In History: FBI
By LIZ GOFF
JFK AIRPORT- Dec. 11, 1978: Members of a Queens organized crime family committed the largest heist in American history.
The mobsters pulled off the heist at 3:12 a.m. with the help of Lufthansa freight supervisor, Louis Werner.
Werner, an acquaintance of mobster Henry Hill, hoped to wipe out debts to mob bookies by providing inside information about cargo operations at the JFK terminal. Thanks to Werner, wiseguys working for Jimmy “The Gent” Burke were able to memorize the layout of freight rooms – as well as who worked where, and when.
They also knew a silent wall alarm inside a safe at the terminal would wail, if someone touched it.
The wiseguys pulled off the heist without tripping the alarm, or firing a single shot. They were out the door in just sixty-four minutes – on their way to pink Cadillacs and floor-length mink coats that led to their “offing.”
Despite one of the largest manhunts in the history of U.S. law enforcement, wiseguys who survived the aftermath were still on the street three years after the heist.
Enter Henry Hill, who angered mob bosses by getting busted in a federal drug sting. Hill figured he was next on Burke’s list of disappearing wiseguys. So to stay alive, he grew a beard and entered the federal witness protection program.
Hill gave federal prosecutors more than enough information on mob murders to send Burke to prison for life. Burke was never charged with the heist, but in 1985 he was sentenced to life for murdering an associate.
Hill also ratted out his mob mentor, much-feared underboss Paul Vario – who was sentenced to six years for helping plan the Lufthansa heist.
The story of Henry Hill was eventually published in a best-selling book dubbed, “Wiseguy.” The book made it to the big screen in the form of the hit movie, “Goodfellas,” directed by Queens native Martin Scorsese.
The Aftermath
One by one, bodies of the men involved in the Lufthansa heist started turning up all over the city, especially in Queens. Parnell “Stax” Edwards was supposed to ditch the van used to haul the money, but left it in a “No Parking” area, where cops found his fingerprints and the wallet of one of the Lufthansa guards. Stax was the first to be killed, in his Ozone Park home.
Over time, a total of 13 wiseguys connected to the crime just “disappeared,” or turned up dead.
Mangled bodies turned up all over New York City – from the bloodstained bedroom in Ozone Park to a meat hook in a refrigerated truck in Brooklyn.
Louis Cafora, Martin Krugman, Richard Eaton and Teresa Ferrara were just some of bodies to turn up. The mafia code of “Dead Men Tell No Tales” was upheld – until Hill started pointing her finger, giving up everybody associated with the Lufthansa heist as he went into the witness protection program.
He has since come out of hiding, has been in and out of jail for drug trafficking and had outlived just about everybody else involved in Lufthansa.
